Workers with disabilities still unwelcome in Korea

The Korea Times reports on July 7 that Korea has two million disabled people, but many businesses are reluctant to hire them, with large corporations especially unwilling to employ them.

According to the Ministry of Labor Monday, 89,546 disabled people were working for 20,125 private companies with more than 50 staff as of the end of last year, which makes their employment rate 1.54 percent of he total. This is less than the government required 2 percent quarter, but the figure has increased from 1.37 percent a year ago, ministry spokeswoman Lee Bu-yong said.

However, it was larger companies who were more reluctant to hire disabled people. While companies with 50-200 staff had a 1.69 percent disabled employment rate, those with more than 1,000 staff marked only 1.3 percent. Of those employed, 81.5 percent were considered suffering a physical disability while the remainder were categorized as mentally challenged.

"Those with cerebral palsy or other serious-level diseases work well in the information-technology field. According to the ministry, the so-called mentally retarded also work well in service industries such as fast food chains. Many people think these people cannot do certain things or that they require too much care, but in fact, they can do pretty much anything anyone else can,'' ministry official Lee said.

According to the Employment Promotion and Vocational Rehabilitation for Disabled Person Act, public organizations and private companies with more than 50 employees must have disabled people account for at least 2 percent of their staff. Those with more than 100 members who do not follow this act are subject to a fine.

The Labor Ministry also announced that those who establish an affiliate company to hire severely handicapped people will receive 1 billion won ($1 million) in subsidies. The names of those public organizations and companies with more than 300 staff but no disabled employees will be released in August.